Wednesday: last day in Tassie

You know you’ve been eating too much on vacation, when you wake up, wander past all the French bakeries and tempting fresh omelettes and piles of hotcakes and sausages in rolls and decide to sit on the Brooke St Pier and eat an apple out of your pocket, instead. I didn't think my poor abused tummy could handle any more.

Today was the Cadbury Factory Tour. Our guide, Chris, who probably had at least seven grandchildren, ticked me off on his list twice: having forgotten who I was, in the interval between when I greeted him on the pier, and when I clambered onto the bus with all the other chocolate-greedy geezers. Chris expertly piloted the bus the six or seven kilometres to the Cadbury factory, peppering us with historical facts, while my busmates murmured softly to one another and sucked their teeth. The bus was very quiet.



They set us loose in the visitors’ centre of the factory with an hour and half to wander. When we walked through the front door, a friendly lady handed us each a big pack of “Cadbury favourites.” So we were already chewing as we perused historic Cadbury tins, watched an informative DVD, sat down to learn the chocolate making process, and avoided Freddo Frog, a Cadbury icon, who was walking around waving his big white gloves in search of children to terrify. We hurried to the choc shop to fill our big purple bags with discount “Not perfect” chocs, the less attractive or badly-made bars. It was hard not to buy when it was only 80 cents for a crème egg (big signs reminded us that Easter would be here in just a month!) and 2.50 for a full bar—whereas in the shops, eggs are 1.25 and bars are 3 and up. I had to keep reminding myself that I had only paid for 20 kg of baggage on the plane back to Sydney, which meant I had to keep it to less than 20 pounds of chocolate. Sigh.



Back on the bus, I struck up a conversation with Veronique, the only other person under 50, also traveling by herself, from New Caledonia. We chatted our way through the harbour cruise. The master pointed out, in a rolling commentary: Risdon Cove, the site of the first landing in Van Diemen’s Land; Aboriginal cave dwellings; and the new pylons where a vessel knocked down part of the causeway years ago. Back at the pier, I warmed myself, lizardlike, on a sunny bench with a book I borrowed from Kyla, called Yoga For People Who Can’t Be Bothered to Do It.




There was one more adventure in store for me. I said a fond farewell to Battery Point, loaded up the rental car and drove down to Salamanca, parking in the first available spot. Feeling peaceful and competent, knowing I would be in plenty of time for the flight, I stopped at a little bar in the Square and enjoying a dish of linguine with roasted cherry tomatoes, chicken, pine nuts and goat cheese. Fifteen minutes ahead of schedule, I headed back for the car.

Only, the car wasn’t there. In my haste to park, and watching the GPS, I hadn’t noticed where I had left the car. In increasing consternation, and starting to sweat in the bright sun, I hurried up and down the streets, looping back on myself and wishing every single other car wasn’t a white Kia Rio just like mine, many with Budget rental car plates. It was half an hour later that I finally found the car and roared out of the parking lot only to screech to a halt. Rush hour traffic on the A3. As I stared anxiously at lines of cars in front of me, I finally noticed the small orange paper flapping on the windscreen wiper.

Out past the causeway, the traffic disappeared and I revved the engine, but in spite of my efforts that little piece of paper stuck on bravely. I pulled into the car rental return and read my parking ticket, but it was only $25. Distracted, but an hour and a half early, I blithely left my brand new Lily Allen cd in the car and gave back the keys.



Of course, my flight was delayed by half an hour, but Darryl was able to pick me up at the airport and I was home, clean and asleep before 11. Goodbye Tassie!